Hundreds of nails and miles of string
October 12, 2015 5:49 AM   Subscribe

String (or yarn) and nail art can pretty straight-forward - use nails to set anchors for string and make something. You can make more complex patterns, like this string art clock by Aline Campbell, or multi-colored geometric patterns by Mahmoud Al-qammari. But it takes more skill and patience to make a giant portrait, as done by Zenyk Palagniuk, in the style of Kumi Yamashita.
posted by filthy light thief (16 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Totally amazing and yet the medium seems to call for the more classic themes of Elvis or sad clowns.
posted by sammyo at 6:03 AM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


We had one for years, that my sister made in Vacation Bible School. It was all very orange and yellow and sunburst looking, like something that would have hung on the classroom wall of the Enterprise-D.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:12 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Marcel Duchamp nailed it
posted by oulipian at 6:13 AM on October 12, 2015


My father made so many string art pictures in the 70s. So many. They were all over our house. Until they got dusty and hard to clean and gradually disappeared.
posted by interplanetjanet at 6:17 AM on October 12, 2015


OH, that kind of nail art!
posted by Gable Oak at 6:33 AM on October 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Those overlaid geometric patterns remind me of the line art I used to make in QBASIC and DarkBASIC as a kid. The way you can get beautiful curves from straight lines by skipping over different numbers of nails is awesome, and it looks really soothing and meditative to do.
posted by WCWedin at 6:50 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


OH, that kind of nail art!

That's what happened to me, too. I got stuck on the "nail art" part, and thought somehow people were attaching strings to their nails and then making crazy cat's-cradle type designs with them.
posted by amarynth at 7:11 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


This Tweety is exactly like one I made in 1975. You're welcome.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:14 AM on October 12, 2015


If you have to clean string art or un-glazed framed needlepoints, the best way to do it is to put a pantyhose over the end of the vacuum's detail attachment and use that to suck up all the dust, always remembering to hold it a few inches away from the surface of the piece.
posted by blnkfrnk at 7:28 AM on October 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


You still see these things all over the place in thrift stores. The lingering detritus of the crafts of the 70s. Less decoupage now, but still a health amount of rug hookwork
posted by Ferreous at 7:30 AM on October 12, 2015


I remember these from friends' basement rec rooms in the 80s. I noticed the local St. Vinnie's is pricing nail art pictures much higher, around $30-$50 for the few I've seen.
posted by areaperson at 7:57 AM on October 12, 2015


Spirograph comes to mind--in the nicest way.
posted by datawrangler at 8:33 AM on October 12, 2015


These are neat, but man, the fact that the clock is outlined in a bit of string that forms an 8 pointed shape would drive me batshit insane. 4 points would have been fine. 12 points would have been the most obvious choice. 8 points on a clock is just wrong. Wrongity wrong wrong.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:51 AM on October 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, that's a problem unless you believe in 2 half 4 self 8 cornered clock.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:17 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


One of my first non-babysitting jobs in high school (in the 70's) was making this "art" as piece work with local landmarks (Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, etc.) as the themes--the pieces were then sold at a booth near Fisherman's Wharf to tourists. Of course, like any piece work job, the abusive manager found all kinds of reasons not to pay me for my work (one missed nail head or I used the "copper thread" in this space when I should have used "silver")....I think I lasted about two or three weeks. I realized they were selling my pieces that I'd gotten paid 1/2 of my pittance amount for, for full price.
posted by agatha_magatha at 10:07 AM on October 12, 2015


I love the miniature stop motion animation that Campbell put in her video! And all the other touches, too. How very clever.
posted by amanda at 8:20 PM on October 12, 2015


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